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He | is | a | shoemaker. | Who | is | he | ? |
participant |
process (material) |
participant (phenomena) |
process ? |
process |
participant |
It seems to me that "Who" is a participant and not a process. A process is not a thing; it's an event, an action, a change of some sort (informational or actual). That is why processes take TENSE, and it's why they are divided into processes we can see (material processes), processes we have to think or feel (mental ones), and processes we listen to and hear (verbal processes).
But there is also a very general and very abstract process called RELATIONAL processes. These processes are actually (by far) the most common processes in our book; almost every lesson uses one in the title of the lesson. And the most common process of all is "to be".
Halliday considers "to be" not a MATERIAL process but a RELATIONAL one. There are two basic realizations in the very first part of our third grade book:
Hello | I' | m | Minsu. | Today | I | 'm | fine. |
Interpersonal theme |
Participant (Identified) |
Process (Relational) |
Participant (Identifier) |
Topical theme (Circumstance) |
Participant (Carrier) |
Process (Relational) |
Participant (Attribute) |
Which one is Mr. Kim using? Is the shoemaker an identifier or an attribute?
제가 | 이름을 | 어떻게 | 알 아요? | |
participant (senser) Good |
participant (goal) Remember that the co-participant of a senser is a SENSED thing, not a goal--it's a PHENOMENON, not an object. |
process (relational)
Are you sure this isn't a topical theme (a circumstance)? |
process (mental) |
Focused on representation, the teacher tried to make it known to the student that the old man's job is a shoemaker. But the teacher asked 'who' question. The student considered the who question ia used when asking about someone's name.
Systemic Functional Grammar is based on the idea that functions are realized by SYSTEMS. Systems are something like MENUS--they offer choices. For example, the system of mood offers a choice of asking questions, making statements, and giving commands. The system of transitivity offers a choice of material, mental, and relational processes.
The system of theme offers a choice between two subsystems (given-new and theme-rheme). These choices are shared resources that people use when they fashion unique utterances; they are the reason why we can be completely original and still well understood.
Halliday says that a lot of systems can be understood as BINARY choices (yes-no, past-nonpast, indicative-imperative). And the more general, the more basic, the more fundamental a system, the more likely it is to be BINARY.
If you read Halliday's book on early child language, you will see that one of the most general, the most basic, the most fundamental systems is the UP and DOWN intonational system. Now, this system never disappears--we still use it. DOWN intonation is used to notice NEW information, and UP intonation marks OLD information.
Compare:
a) T: This is a shoemaker. Who IS (DOWN) the shoemaker? Who IS (DOWN) he?
S: I don't know.
b) T: This is a shoemaker. WHO (UP) is he?
S: A shoemaker.
You can see that a) stresses the RHEME and it means something like 도대재 누구인가?
You can see that b) stresses the THEME (the subject) and it means something like "confirm the given information for me".
Interpersonal metafunction
He | is | a | shoemaker. | Who | is | he | ? |
Mood (subject) |
predicator Remember that the finite is INCLUDED in the predicator ("fused" with it) |
Residue (complement) |
Residue (complement) |
Residue Right! |
Residue (predicator) finite too |
Mood |
Nice work, Mr. Kim!
Compare:
a) Who killed him?
b) Who is he?
You can see that in the FIRST sentence "who" is Mood. But Mr. Kim is not fooled; he knows that his sentence is really b), so "Who" is the residue! Bravo!
제가 | 이름을 | 어떻게 | 알아 | 요? |
Mood (subject) |
Residue (complement) |
Residue (predicator) circumstantial adjunct? wh-word |
Residue (predicator) |
Mood? (finite?) |
From the viewpoint of EXCHANGE, the teacher tried to give information by statement and he wanted to get the information if the the student understand what he said. The student gave the information to the teacher by asking question that she needed to know the old man's name first to answer that question.
Right. But look carefully at the END of the sentence. It really seems to me that in Korean sentences the most important part of the mood, the finite, appears at the END of the sentence. That's where we get information about:
a) power relations between speaker and hearer (honorific-humilific)
b) modality (certainty, probability, likelihood)
c) tense
All of these are normally expressed by the FINITE, at least in English. Isn't Korean just like this?
Textual metafunction
He | is | a | shoemaker. | Who | is | he | ? |
Theme (given) |
Rheme | Rheme |
Rheme (new) |
Rheme (topical) |
Rheme | Theme |
Remember that "theme" is the point of departure for organizing the message; it's a little like the beginning of a letter, where you introduce yourself or say why you are writing.
"Who is he?"
I agree that "who" is residue: it's not the subject of the sentence. But I don't agree that it's a rheme; it seems to me that the whole "letter" is really about "who".
I think Mr. Kim is right to say that it is "topical"--it's the topic that the message is about. But I don't think it's NEW information, because I don't think it's information AT ALL.
제가 | 이름을 | 어떻게 | 알아 | 요? |
Theme (topical) |
Rheme (new) |
Rheme
(topical)
It seems to me that THIS is the topic. But for that very reason it seems to me that THIS is the theme, and not the rheme.
|
Rheme |
I agree--ONE theme is 제가. But the theme really represents the POINT of DEPARTURE for ORGANIZING the message--it's the part you take as "given". Here it's made explicit, because if we left it out, the sentence would assume the theme is YOU and not ME.
Is it an INTERPERSONAL theme or a TOPICAL theme?
It is needed to see a clause as a MESSAGE in textual metafunction.
Yes! Remember that we used the textual metafunction to differentiate between many different types of questions:
Tell me about.... (Theme: "tell")
Why...? (Theme: circumstantial adjunct, e.g. "because" clause)
What...? (Theme: process or participant)
Where...? (Theme: circumstantial adjunct, e.g. time or place)
Who...? (Theme: participant)
How...? (Theme: circumstantial adjunct, e.g. manner)
Did ...? (Theme: finite)
The teacher would like to confirm! the new information. (the old man is a shoemaker.)
The student protested to the teacher that the old man's name is not mentioned and It was not proper question.
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Now, you can see that Mr. Kim has made it possible--even necessary--to differentiate between different KINDS of "who" participant: identified/identifier, and token/value. The former is used for NAMING. But the latter is used when giving EXAMPLES. Compare:
a) Hi, I'm Minsu.
b) I'm a student.
Which one is naming? Which one is exemplifying? Which one is identified/identifier? Which one is token/value?
How can the teacher make it CLEAR. It seems to me that the KEY to this data might be INTONATION. What do you think?
dk